Today (23 March 2011), we jointly announced with Aspen that some time later this year (presently forecast for Q4 2011), the DFC90 will be integrated and certified to work with an AspenEFD1000 Pro or EFD1000 C3 Pro PFD and AHRS.We have been jointly working on this
integration for some time now and expect initial certification in the later
part of 2011.We will update the target
certification date as more milestones are achieved. This initial certification
will be for the Cirrus SR20 and SR22 aircraft models.Follow on approvals in other make and model
aircraft are being evaluated and will be prioritized based on customer interest
and input.(The DFC100 will still
require an Avidyne R9 system.)

Bonanzas owners have generated a lot of interest in the possibility of an Aspen-DFC90 combo. Are you aware of any other Bonanza drivers who have an interest? We're using that type of input to determine the next set of aircraft to integrate/certify and the bigger the potential market, the more likely a given airframe will bubble it's way up to the top of the list.

We announced the DFC90 support for Barons, Bonanzas and Skylanes this week at Oshkosh. I've started a separate thread on this forum for more information on those. They do require an Aspen PFD as the attitude source.

We are now in the final stages of looking at the Cessna 210 family for possible DFC90-Aspen support/integration.

Thanks Eric. Money being spent wisely. I see from your Beechtalk Avatar that you are located in Ok City. It's a distance but the invite is always open to visit our MA or FL offices for show/tell and progress checks.

Thanks Eric. Money being spent wisely. I see from your Beechtalk Avatar that you are located in Ok City. It's a distance but the invite is always open to visit our MA or FL offices for show/tell and progress checks.

Thanks. I might just take you up on that. Actually, I'm so enthused about what you guys are doing I'm thinking about asking if you need any more computer engineers.

Just let me know if/when you want to arrange a visit. As for potential job opportunities, we'd be very interested in taking a look at your resume and/or talking about potential opportunities. If you really are serious, shoot me an email at sjacobson@avidyne.com with your information and we'll go from there.

A short update on the progress of the Aspen PFD-DFC90 Integration efforts.....

Aspen in the final stages of modifying the output of their PFD to look exactly like that of the Avidyne PFD. When complete, the DFC90 won't even know if an Avidyne unit or an Aspen unit is driving it. We expect to be getting a prototype very shortly.

Aspen has their own SR22 that will conduct much of the flying and testing and Avidyne has equipped our Cessna 182 with an Aspen and a DFC90 and is awaiting that proto load from Aspen to do our own flight testing in. All of our respective labs are equipped with the hardware and are eagerly awaiting the proto Aspen load. The Aspen SR22 will be the initial cert platform airplane.

Right now, we're collectively calling the estimated cert date of the SR22 variant to be Q4 of this year. We're talking weekly to ensure this program stays on track.

We're also soliciting input from Baron and Bonanza owners on their willingness to use their airplanes as development or cert platforms. These aircraft have many more configuration variations than the Cirrus and 182 platforms and require more combination testing.

DFC90-Aspen PFD Integration Status Update: We now have working Aspen PFDs talking to and driving the DFC90 autopilot in our company labs. Aircraft are being prepped now for flight test as soon as we feel confident in flight readiness.

I am considering the Aspen Backup display (see http://www.aspenavionics.com/pdfs/Evolution-Backup-Display-product-sheet.pdf ) as a replacement for the three remainig steam gauges. Aspen advertises the product interfces with most GA autopilots. Will the DFC 100 accept any commands, e.g., GPS steering, from this system? If not, are you planning on any such linkage? I am particularly interested in this unit because it provides a two hour battery back up and will fit in the existing panel slot. The Cirrus electrical system has not proved to be very robust and the Aspen system will leave me with a functioning AHRS if and when the alternators go down again. Does Avidyne have any such project in the works?

There are no plans at this time to allow the Aspen PFD to able to drive a DFC100 in the event of a dual IFD failure. Just like the DFC90 and DFC100 are not compatible in that the communication databus (serial signal vs byteflight databus) are different and just like EXP5000 and R9 IFDs are not compatible communication schemes, the Aspen does not have an ability to transmit a R9 compatible format and the DFC100 does not have the ability to talk on both serial and Byteflight.

DFC90-Aspen PFD Integration Status Update: We now have working Aspen PFDs talking to and driving the DFC90 autopilot in our company labs. Aircraft are being prepped now for flight test as soon as we feel confident in flight readiness.

I really am looking forward to this combi and hope you will certify it for the Commanders

Thanks for the post and the Commander request. We think that would be a great platform for the DFC90 too. As you can gather from other posts, we haven't announced plans to support the Commander and are trying to stay focused on the platforms we have announced. We hope to come up for air in the next year and evaluate which aircraft to work on next.

Avidyne has several flights under our belts now with an Aspen Pro PFD driving the DFC90 in our company Cessna 182. So far we've validated the Aspen AHRS mods and VHF modes. After several flights of tuning and debugging, we're now happy with that performance.

Aspen plans to install the DFC90 into their company Cirrus SR22 in November and begin flights themselves.

The design of the autopilot annunciators and bugs needed some modification for the SynVis version of the Aspen PFD and we're working on that now.

No new news to report. We're busy plugging away in our labs integrating with the King servos and continuing flight test in our company airplane that is equipped with the Aspen PFD and the DFC90 autopilot.

In addition to our company C-182 equipped with a DFC90 and Aspen PFD, we now have a BE33 Bonanza to use for DFC90 integration and testing. It's a 28V bird equipped with King KFC150 autopilot and servos and serves as the test bed for King servo integration and the cert platform for the smaller straight tail Bonanzas.

We hear you. We also think that would be a great platform for the DFC90. We're going to stay focused on the current announced aircraft to be supported and complete those to a sufficient degree before we commit ourselves to taking on a new airplane type.

That being said, we do have a head start on a portion of the Arrow (and Warrior) population. I specifically mean the Avidyne Entegra EXP5000 PFD and STec 55X equipped PA28s. Any chance your airplane has that configuration? (I'm assuming from the way you worded your question that that would be a "no").

Avidyne has two Aspen-equipped and
DFC90-equipped C-182s that we're using for development and certification
platforms and Aspen now has their company SR22 equipped with an Aspen
PFD and DFC90 autopilot. We believe the Aspen attitude and nav output
performance is now acceptable and we are working on the user interface
for the Aspen PFD.

We are running two aircraft certifications in
parallel. Aspen will achieve the STC on the SR2X aircraft and Avidyne
will achieve the STC on the 182 platforms.

As noted in an earlier post above, Avidyne also has
long-term possession of a 1984 F33A Bonanza. This is a King servo
equipped airplane. We are currently running characterization testing of
the MET circuit so we understand pitch trim speed, responsiveness,
bandwidth, circuit design, etc. As soon as we are done with that MET
testing, we will run the aerodynamic model flight tests (January 2012)
where we measure the aircraft response to various control inputs which
then gets rolled back into the DFC90 aero model and software. Next
steps after that are to install an Aspen PFD in that airplane.

I expect the next meaningful milestone to report on will be the completion of the user interface mods to the Aspen PFD.

Aspen has completed the user interface mods to the Aspen PFD and both Aspen and Avidyne are testing it. This includes the various autopilot bug values, autopilot modes annunciations and all the setup parameters.

Both companies are scheduled to be flying the for-credit company flight tests of the updated code during the month of February.

I expect the next meaningful milestone to report on will be the completion of those company flight tests.

What are there, if any plans for Mooney aircraft being considered to add to the certification list?

There are around 7,000 Mooneys flying around the world. Many owners I know are keen for the DFC90 when it becomes available. My own Mooney has an Aspen Pro 1000 PFD and a STEC 55x autopilot and can hardly wait.

We agree the Mooney is a great candidate airplane for the DFC90. I'm sorry to keep sounding like a broken record but we are focused on knocking out the certifications for the models we've announced so far before we announce any other types of aircraft. I suspect that will keep us occupied for most of 2012.

Here is a draft DFC90 Pilot Guide that has been updated for the Aspen PFD integration.

This is subject to changes that may be required as part of the FAA evaluation and certification activities. There are some known formatting changes (pagination, TOC, index, etc) that are being cleaned up but we believe this content is complete.

It's been a busy couple of weeks for the combined Aspen PFD - Avidyne DFC90 project. Some highlights:

We've been very active in flying both the Aspen-equipped SR22 with the DFC90 and the Aspen-equipped C-182 with the DFC90.

We believe the autopilot performance mods are now totally complete. In other words, the autopilot flies those aircraft very, very well and we have no more changes to make at all with the autopilot.

We have a few more minor changes to make with the Aspen display software (e.g. tweaking the annunciator display and the autopilot bug display behavior).

We also have to fix an airplane level gremlin in the SR22 (not Aspen display or Avidyne autopilot related) to allow the airplane to perform exactly as it does in the certified DFC90 equipped Cirri.

We've spent this past week out at Plant City FL with both airplanes giving demo flights to a host of aviation writers and editors. The autopilot performed flawlessly throughout all of that "stress testing".

In the meantime, we've started flying a F33A out in our CO location. It was modified for the DFC90 and we're flying the standard test point matrix now. That should be done in a week or two which means we'll have a fully tuned DFC90 model for the BE-33 family. We then have to create the appropriate drawing packages and STC cert data before that can be considered an approved and shipping configuration.

As of Monday, 2 April, we'll be flying a V35B Bonanza in our Melbourne FL facility. We expect about two weeks of flight testing with that airplane after which we'll spend a few weeks putting together the final cert package for the FAA.

The C-182 STC package will officially be the first one we turn into the FAA for certification. So, from a cert perspective, that is the next set of milestones I'll report on here. Upcoming milestones for that effort include: Final Aspen software configuration, Company Ground and Flight Test Report completed, FAA Flight Test completed.

We'll also likely update the F33A and V35B flight testing progress when there is something interesting to report or they are completed.

Same will be true when the Aspen-equipped Cirrus package is ready to go into the FAA.

V35B Progress Report: The V-tail Bonanza did make it to our Melbourne hangar over the weekend. It's a two-tube Aspen configuration that we modified with a DFC90. All installations were completed on Tuesday, FAA Experimental ticket issued Wednesday morning and it took it's first DFC90 test flight yesterday, afternoon (4 April).

We have some minor gain adjustments to make and then we'll spend the next 5-10 days testing all corners of the flight envelope.

V35B Progress Report: Tuning for the V-tail Bonanza is complete. We ended up flying 6 or 7 sorties over the last two weeks and have fully tested all aspects of the V-tail envelope up to 17,500'. I even had the good fortune to personally fly the 2 hour "final exam" tuning flight today and can attest to how well this autopilot flies the airplane.

We return the airplane to Normal category tomorrow and turn over the airplane back to its owner on Saturday.

Our next steps are to take that tuned software model and perform the necessary certification testing and put it in the cert line with the FAA.

Likely next milestones to report on in this forum are:

Final Aspen software delivered (there is still a small punch list of minor user interface changes to make);

Final cert package turned into the FAA for the Cessna 182 model;

Final cert package turned into the FAA for the Cirrus SR22 model equipped with Aspen PFD;

Longer answer = It previously would have. But, we recently think we've found a technical solution to support 14V servos as well as 28V systems as part of the initial release. We are conducting those tests now to prove that supposition. 28V vs 14V is irrelevant when talking about the way the DFC90 flies the airplane but is critical in the installation details. It's a complicated story and one that I'll spare you the details of in this post but we're very excited about the recent engineered solution.

As an interesting sidebar, the solution came from one of our autopilot engineers who came up with an ingenious solution to the problem of driving 28V or 14V servos from the same autopilot. He found the proverbial "Westward Passage" and it really exists.

You should see more in the way of posts when we make a few more internal milestones. Overall, it is trending very, very well.

No major milestones to report on in the last two weeks but wanted to post an update nonetheless.

On the Aspen PFD front, we have received a few more interim software loads from Aspen in the last two weeks. They are making good progress on completing the punch list of remaining open items in their software. We all have reason to believe the TSO-candidate software load will be delivered sometime next week. As soon as we have that load, we'll be able to start the "for-credit" Avidyne ground and flight test points in our Cessna 182, leading to the STC submission package.

In parallel with that, tuning for more aircraft models on our previously announced list of aircraft continues.

We expect to have a Baron (B55 variant) at our Melbourne facility the week of 14 May for characterization flight testing. The outcome of that week should be a cert-worthy DFC90 for the short body Barons.

We expect to also be testing out a Century equipped V35B that same week to verify our Century servo driving models and compare them to the STec ones in flight.

This past week, I got to spend some time crawling all over the candidate P-Baron (B58P) that we plan to use for the long body Baron testing.

Next expected status update post will be either a notification that we have the "final" Aspen software or that we're flying the B55 with the DFC90.

We were able to complete all of our characterization flight testing for the DFC90 in a Baron (B55) and are pleased to report that the autopilot flies the airplane as expected. I had the the opportunity to fly the first test flight of the week myself and can personally attest to the autopilot performance in the twin. We were able to cover all of the envelope including the toughest point of all: high altitude, high speed, max gross weight, max aft cg and then even did an engine chop. We were very pleased with the performance. The aircraft will be returned to Normal category this coming week and returned to the owner.

This means we now have autopilot models for the short body Bonanza (B33), the V-tail Bonanza (B35) and the short body Baron (B55) as well as the Cirrus, Matrix/Mirage, Cessna 182 and PA32s. We still need to create the autopilot models for the long body Bonanza (B36) and long body Baron (B58) and will start those soon.

On the Aspen PFD front, we had found three more items needing correction early in the week and by the end of the week, we now have what both companies believe to the final software load. We flew that final load and it has the "Avidyne signoff". Aspen will spend a few weeks performing the official software-test-for-credit on that load and as soon as we hear it is complete, we will start our final STC data submission to the FAA for the C-182-Aspen-DFC90 combo.

As soon as that initial STC is granted, we'll immediately submit for those other models (Barons, Bonanzas, PA32).

Next expected status update post will either be a notification that started the FAA testing or have made our final STC submission.

I think you should plan on trying to keep your STec 50 on life support for another 4ish months. What year is your F33A - is it 14V or 28V?

The biggest unknown now with the schedule is the FAA. We're certain they will be heavily involved in the first Aspen cert we do (Cessna 182) but they haven't decided on what level of involvement they will have with the follow-on certs (this includes the F33A). We have our autopilot model created for the Stec equipped F33As so our plan is to submit that STC paperwork as soon as the 182 STC is granted.

Is there something specific on your STec 50 you're struggling with right now?

Steve, My F33A is a 1979 28 volt system. Every once and a while the aircraft will lose altitude even though alt hold is on. Also I notice that the system tracks to the left of the magenta line on the Garmin 530 when on GPSS during an approach. I realize this may be a Garmin issue but I figured I could solve everything one fell swoop when changing out systems.

1. Not immediately helpful to you but the DFC90 does have extensive data logging such that we would most likely know within minutes of getting a copy of the data logs what the cause of that behavior would be, whether it be bad input from the navigator, bad signal from altimetry, or dirty/out of spec servos or trim system.

2. My first thoughts turn to the health of your existing servos. They are brushed DC motor type servos that can build up carbon deposits over time and affect the performance. Do you known when the last time they may have been serviced/cleaned?

3. In alt hold mode in your existing setup, there is a separate pressure transducer that serves as the target alt to hold sensor/device. That entire set up goes away in a DFC90 install which, from all field reports I've received to date, has completely squashed those kinds of pre-DFC90 reports.

4. If your airplane tracks the magenta line well in enroute cruise then I'd be inclined to first look at the roll axis servo system. I'm not aware of Garmin navigators tracking well in cruise but not in approach - that phase of flight change is more often associated with autopilot roll control gain changing so it typically points to the flight control computer or servo setup.

5. One relatively quick and easy way that we check the health of brushed DC servos is to measure the startup voltage - that's the voltage it takes to get the servo to start turning. This is a ground based test and most savvy avionics shops that work with autopilots know what the startup voltage specs are for those servos and how to test it.

You definitely sound like a perfect candidate for the DFC90. We trucking as fast was we can to have a certified solution for you.

If you'd like to continue the discussion off-line, my email is sjacobson@avidyne.com

Thanks! Will a five spot make the truck go a little faster? ;-) I have only had the plane for less than a year so I am slowly working the bugs out. She is due an annual in August so I was hoping that the STC would be ready by then but no worries. Sounds like either way if I have servo problems they well need to be resolved whether the S-TEC or DFC system is installed. Thanks for your help on this.

I have a G-35 Bonanza with single Aspen PFD with syn vision, S-TEC 50 autopilot and new GTN 750. I have been very interested in the upgrade since talking to Jared Butson at the ABS Convention in Las Vegas last year. My understanding is that certification for the older 12 vdc V Tails is not expected until late in the year.

Excuse me if I missed any earlier posts, but my aircraft does not have electric trim. How will the DFC 90 annunciate the need for manual trim as the S-TEC 50 currently does?

I'm really looking forward to installing the system. It will provide incredible capability to a 56 year old airplane not to mention the safety factor.

I have and IFD540 on order for my 69 model normally aspirated twin Comanche PA30. My plan is to have it installed with a panel make over when the Avidyne becomes available in late 2012. I plan to install an Aspen Pro 1000 or Garmin 500 along with a new autopilot and was wondering if you might be considering an STC for the DFC90 for the comanches either single or twin(same basic airframe). My existing autopilot is the original Altimatic IIIB(Century) with the original servos and electric trim and I will be replacing it with a new unit. I would like to complete the entire project all at the same time if the STC would be forthcoming along that same time frame as the IFD540. I would certainly also offer my plane up for flight testing the autopilot as necessary to expedite the STC. I am not too far away in South Georgia. Any time frames you can offer up would be appreciated. Please contact me if I can be of any support for the autopilot test flying. Thanks, CW

We think the PA30 is another great platform for the DFC90 autopilot. However, as I'm sure you've read, we have not announced that, or any other airframes as the next in line for the DFC90 STC work. We want to get through our pretty full plate before getting committed to any other airframes. That being said, I will definitely add you and your airplane to PA30 list.

Thanks for the note. We're currently trying to achieve a simultaneous cert of the 12/14 and 28V aircraft with the DFC90 and Aspen. It is possible we'll have to separate the two as we hit the end-game but for now, they are a simultaneous cert.

We need to get through the initial Aspen cert on the C-182 and then we're going to pile on the Bonanzas and Barons.

As for your trim question, the DFC nor the PFDs will annunciate a need to manually trim. In fact, it is a requirement of the DFC90 system to have a functional pitch trim system on-board. The DFC90 uses the pitch trim system extensively as part of its precision flying in the pitch axis.

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